During a trip to India to promote vocational education the Skills Minister has announced that the government will establish a 10 person team in Westminster to ‘capatalise on the growth of demand for UK education from abroad.’
The Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) announcement comes ahead of the government’s education sector industrial strategy due to be published in early 2013.
Matthew Hancock said: “It is essential that we realise the potential of the largely untapped resource that is our education exports. There is a fast-growing demand for high-quality education, and we are lucky to have a dynamic and entrepreneurial sector that is well placed to contribute.
Education UK will specifically target fast-growing markets such as India and the Middle East”
“We are in a global race and other countries are presenting attractive and co-ordinated offers, so Education UK is a vital step in bringing together the UK sector to drive its international engagement, particularly on high-value opportunities.”
The press release goes on to say: “Education UK will specifically target fast-growing markets such as India and the Middle East. The UK has an excellent reputation for education internationally, but isn’t currently exploiting this to the full.
“Education UK will work on:
- Researching, identifying and helping to develop trading opportunities for UK exports
- Supporting UK providers to respond effectively to targeted international opportunities, by fostering the development of UK consortia for specific opportunities and helping them to prepare and promote bids
- Ensuring large-scale complex commercial opportunities, which the UK is not currently well-equipped to respond to, are effectively pursued so UK organisations win the business.”
Education UK is a joint BIS and United Kingdom Trade & Investment (UKTI) initiative and the 10 person team will be based at 1 Victoria Street in London.
The FE Week team is ‘on location’ in India, and our blog can be followed and read here.
Will this be linked in any way to the British Council’s Education UK site?
Great idea. Important though the export opportunity is, and it is truly vast, such ventures are also a source of enrichment for our learners and staff. We have a duty to prepare our learners to succeed in an increasingly global economy and labour market.